For the Love of Money

This nuanced film explores the depth of our profound relationship with money. I believe it deserves more than a solitary viewing.

It starts;

Money was originally intended
as a facility to help accelerate
the progress of our dreams,
ideas, talents and actions.

Yet for so many it has
become a hindrance.

Peter Koenig, the film’s subject then proceeds as follows ~ ‘You can’t have a healthy relationship with money unless you love it. If you’re running after it, or you hate it, it’s always going to be your enemy.’

The full film transcript is below. Included because of the depth of the nuance.

Full Money Series ~ the making of this film has led me to realise that I must set out to make a full film series in further exploration of the subject. Including the very real, unrecognized and unadmitted experience of money. From very real people, caught between the frames of a film. What is it that will shift awareness, and not simply understanding?

We are seeking a sponsor/partner for this venture in film. Let us know if you have ideas. It might suit a financial organization with the desire to raise awareness around money.

[Money was originally intended as a facility to help accelerate the progress of our dreams, ideas, talents and actions. Yet for so many it has become a hindrance.]

You can’t have a healthy relationship with money, unless, unless you love it. If you are running after it, or you hate it, it’s always going to be like your enemy in a way.

It feels fantastic to say I love money, and mean it. It’s like anything else that one can love. Or a person that can love. The feeling is the same. Because actually it’s not disconnected. It’s connected to the relationship. It’s connected to my relationship to myself, and it’s connected to my relationship to the other person.

[For three decades Peter Koenig has studied the effects of our deepest relationship with money. His findings hold profound implication for us all.]

I’d never asked the right question before. The right question was ‘What Is Money?’. Everybody is so convinced about their own definition of what it is. But many of them are contradictory. So they can’t all be absolutely right.

If money is everything that we think it is, that everybody says it is, then it can’t be anything that everybody says it is. That can’t be the bottom line of it. So then what is it really?

[What is money to you?]

It’s actually not what we say it is, but what we say it is has an impact on us. And it is just an idea that we project onto an empty screen – which is a piece of paper, a piece of metal or most of what we think of in terms of money is just an empty space, so it’s not even material.

When I have an idea, this idea will create an experience. And the experience will always reinforce the original idea. Now, if I’m not conscious of what I’m projecting that idea onto, then I become the slave of whatever I’m projecting it onto.

The idea I can’t exist without money is a typical projection on money, and will make – unless I’m conscious of it – me a slave of money. I’ve cut myself off from my own internal sense of existence. And believe that I need money to exist.

[What do you unconsciously project on to money?]

Some people have projected things like they think money is their security, their happiness, their freedom, and they run after it and their power in a positive way. So they run after it because they want to feel powerful. Actually, what they’re saying is I need money to be powerful – which is an expression of their impotence.

The good use of money is actually to be conscious about what you’re projecting onto it – and do that as a conscious act. Then money becomes a tool for your use. But if you’re unconscious, these things happen mainly unconscious, then these project, then the relation to the money turns, inverts. And money starts to drive you as a slave, rather than being a tool for your use, this is how it works.

[What might you consciously project on to money?]

When I say I, I love money, I mean that I’m conscious of this thing that we call money, however it’s defined, and it is an inspiration. It is an inspirational element within the creative aspect of the business which I am or the business I’m doing with somebody else. The money becomes an inspiration, to me, when I’m paying somebody, and to the other person being paid – or vice versa. So a client paying me, if it’s really working well, will receive inspiration through paying me, as I will in receiving the payment. That’s what I call love.